A Chinese researcher has pleaded guilty to smuggling a dangerous fungus into the United States and lying about it.
Jian Yunqing, 33, made the guilty plea on Nov. 12 in Detroit, five months after her arrest over allegations that she smuggled in Fusarium graminearum, a plant pathogen known to cause head blight in cereal crops such as wheat and barley, from China.
According to the Department of Agriculture, Fusarium head blight has been the worst plant disease seen since the stem rust epidemics of the 1950s, causing close to $3 billion in losses for wheat and barley farmers between 1998 and 2000. Another outbreak in 2003 caused more than $13 million in losses for wheat farmers in Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, among other states….
Chinese Researcher Pleads Guilty to Smuggling Dangerous Pathogen Into US
